


The Libra Chronicle s01e02: "XX"

by alex_greene



Series: The Libra Chronicle [3]
Category: Hunter: The Reckoning
Genre: Aradia Gospel of The Witches, Graphic Description of Corpses, Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, White Wolf - Freeform, hunter: the reckoning - Freeform, imbued, onyx path publishing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 22:29:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20415334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alex_greene/pseuds/alex_greene
Summary: Libra begins to come to terms with the freakishness of life as an imbued. He learns more Hunter Code, goes off on another hunt, wraps up one loose end, and has a chat with Letitia, one of The Enemy.In this hunt, he sees another imbued manifest an edge.He also learns a little more about shufflers and the Awakened.





	The Libra Chronicle s01e02: "XX"

**The Libra Chronicle s01e02: “XX”**

for **Hunter: the Reckoning**

by Alex Greene

* * *

From _The Imbued Memoirs of "Codename Libra,"_ discovered on a flash drive on August 3, 2019, on a chair in St John's Food Court, Liverpool.

* * *

The last week of work -

It's been just three days since -

Don't know how to start this damned -

* * *

We spent Sunday night arguing, like an old married couple. Martin was so … well, _judgmental_ about Letitia and the others. I've got the old family Bible from back home – somehow, he'd found it and he'd spent Sunday poring over the old book.

'Who are these names?' he asked me, showing me a family tree on the frontispiece.

'My family,' I replied. 'The Stewarts of Sowerby Bridge. It's an old family. We can trace it back to the year before Shakespeare was born.'

'Are there any others still alive?'

I nodded, sipping my PG Tips. 'They're all back home, though, still living on the boundary of the moors.'

'How did you end up here?'

'I moved with my work,' I lied. 'Job came here, everybody had to come here too. That, or quit. I couldn't afford to quit.'

Martin looked at one name at the bottom. '“Gregory Malpas,”' he said. 'That you?'

I nodded.

'How come you're not married?'

'The right woman never came along,' I said. Another lie.

Martin looked sideways at me. 'You're not gay, are you?'

I couldn't read his expression, so I had no idea if he equated being gay with being wrong. I hoped he wasn't that sort of person. Bad enough he got his religion out of some Seventies comic book or something – if he was also some screaming homophobe, I was going to have to do something regretful.

I looked at him and, quite calmly and truthfully, replied 'No.' I couldn't describe _what_ I was, but I wasn't an exclusive homosexual. Not like my late brother Carl, bless him.

'Oh,' Martin said, shrinking away from me. I looked at him again.

'Are you?'

After the longest of pauses, Martin nodded, a tiny nod.

'Oh, fuck, I'd never have guessed,' I said. 'Come here.'

We hugged, awkwardly.

'Is this why you and Alicia split up?' I asked Martin.

'Yeah,' he responded. 'God, this doesn't feel even remotely awkward.'

I laughed. 'If you want to stop,' I said. We separated and looked at one another.

'You don't need euphemisms,' I said. 'Not with me.'

'I know it's probably awkward for you,' Martin said. 'If you don't want me to continue to use your spare room, I can go.'

'Stay,' I replied. 'I'm okay with you being who you are.' I grinned. 'Even if we do disagree on what we should have done last night.'

Martin opened his mouth to object. I raised my hand. 'Not tonight,' I said. 'You just came out to me, and that's more important. Focus on that, and on the acceptance. Tomorrow can take care of itself.'

* * *

Monday morning, and I got up early to get to work.

I half-expected Martin to be gone, out the door with just the clothes on his back or something. I heard him using the shower in the upstairs bathroom. I went downstairs to use the ground floor bathroom instead.

I was first into the kitchen, and made a Full English breakfast for two. Martin and I sat eating in silence, staring at my greasy culinary efforts. There wasn't much either of us could say at the moment, or needed to say.

When we were done, I got up and went to the library, looking for two books.

'What are you doing?' Martin asked, from the kitchen. I found the books I was looking for, and took them down from the shelves. My briefcase was on the reading table: I stuffed the first book into it, and caressed the second book, which was a dog-eared late edition from the early Nineties – not one of my favourite editions, but it ought to do.

'He's a teacher,' I said, to the book. 'He should know your value.'

'Who were you talking to?'

I turned around. Martin was standing in the entrance, holding a mug of tea in his hand.

'Here,' I said, offering Martin the book. _Meditations_, by Marcus Aurelius.

'Thanks,' Martin said.

'Consider it an extended loan,' I said. A euphemism, but the situation was different. I pushed past him and reached for my long coat and hat.

'Where are you going?' Martin asked.

'Work,' I replied. 'I'll bring in food for later on, but there's cheese, ham, eggs, and bread in the kitchen. Rummage around. If you're short of anything, there's a Spar just across the road.'

* * *

Those odd signs were everywhere: scrawled on walls, hand-drawn on sheets of paper pasted to posts, and one which had the same design as the note which had been pushed underneath my door - “Hope and Freedom, This Way,” followed by the sign for “The Business.” Those, I noticed, because they had been computer-generated and, most likely, computer-printed.

Somebody had designed that, I realised. Somebody had IT resources, possibly access to the internet. I made it my business to find out who else was out there: who this poster designer was.

* * *

I entered the premises of First Job Recruiting ahead of everybody else. To be specific, I wanted to get in ahead of Letitia.

I wandered into my office, passing by her desk, and I focused my strange Sight on it. Nothing. It looked and felt perfectly mundane. Not one sign or symbol of her witchy nature, anywhere in the room. No doodles on the blotter on her desk – indeed, no doodles at all. The only indentations in the notepad looked like normal writing.

It was as if Letitia was going out of her way to keep her private life and her work separate.

I went to my room and sat down, with the Sight still on, and took out the other book I'd been looking for. It looked normal to me, and the words were in perfectly normal Italian. I sat with my feet up on the desk, reading.

'Hi, Boss.'

I looked up. It was Letitia. She was shrugging off her raincoat and scarf. With the Sight on, she looked _wrong_, somehow, like a single sunlit object in the middle of a darkened room.

'What are you doing here so early?'

I showed her the book.

“_Sarete liberi della schiavitù!_

_E cosi diverrete tutti liberi!_”

Letitia went to her drawer and unlocked one of the drawers. She took out a copy of the book. _Aradia, Gospel of The Witches_, by Charles Leland.

'I had to check,' she said. 'That's the exact same edition I've got. For a moment, it looked as if you'd been through my desk or something.'

I nodded. 'Take a seat,' I said, gesturing. I took my feet off the desk.

Letitia began to look concerned. 'Is everything all right between us, Boss?'

I waited for her to sit. I looked at her in silence for a long moment.

'What I'm going to say to you is going to sound absolutely crazy,' I said to her. 'Last Friday night, I saw something weird. I can't explain it. I saw … I saw a dead person, walking.'

'I see them all the time,' Letitia said, calm and blasé. 'Have done, ever since I was small. I would tell my Mum that I could see people in the house, like Nanna and Taid, even though they left their bodies behind before I was born. But Mum never developed the Sight.'

'Is that what this is?' I asked her.

'Could be,' Letitia replied. 'Could be you're coming into your powers later. It's not unheard-of. Though usually, people who Awaken have a changed aura, and yours is just the same as it ever was. My Boss. An ordinary, everyday, human.'

The way Letitia said it, it didn't come out as an insult. 'When did you … Awaken?' The term sounded weird on my tongue, like someone's first attempts at a foreign language.

'I think I've been Awakened since birth,' Letitia replied. 'There was no big transition, apart from when I turned thirteen. February 14, 1984. That was when the nightmares began for me, and the Shadow People, and Big Hat Man.'

'Do they visit … the Awakened?'

'Some,' Letitia replied. 'Most of us, no.'

I nodded. 'And … people who aren't part of your faith?'

'I've heard from some ordinary people that Shadow People and Big Hat visit them, too,' Letitia replied. 'Not nice company to keep.'

'This all feels very weird,' I said, getting up from my desk. 'Want a cuppa? Everybody will be coming in any minute now.'

* * *

Most of our conversation in the refectory was small talk. By the time I got back, there was a note on my desk. A client had called. Something about one of their night shift workers who hadn't been seen since Friday night, and could I rustle up a new night shift employee?

Something caught my eye: some more of the odd symbols I'd been seeing. '“Corruption,”' I said to myself. '“Walkers.”' There was an address. I put the note in my pocket and reminded myself to talk to Martin about going to check this address out.

I spent the rest of the day poring over candidate lists, shortlisting six names and arranging interview dates for a new employee for the client.

Neither I nor Letitia had anything else to say about her nocturnal predilections for the rest of the day. We parted on cordial terms, as ever, but I noticed a slight tension between us which had not been there before. Perhaps it had been my mentioning the fact that I could now see the shufflers.

I didn't want to tell her that she seemed _wrong_, somehow, to my Sight.

* * *

That night, Janey joined Martin and myself. We had an address to check out. It wasn't too far out of town – in fact, it wasn't too far from where I developed The Sight.

As we passed by the Texaco petrol station, only to take a left turn a short distance further up the road, I looked at Martin with foreboding.

The house was part of a terraced row of housing, in a quiet little side street. This street had seen better days. Part of me imagined it as it once had been – a happy little community, kids in shorts and hand-knitted jumpers playing football in the street, leather satchels for goalposts.

I shook my head to dismiss the illusion. This street looked like the one in _Quatermass and The Pit_ – the homes all looked to be boarded up, abandoned, deserted rather than evacuated. This didn't even feel like a place where junkies would want to go. There were no lights around anywhere. The street lights had all been smashed, and the Council clearly didn't feel it necessary to waste money on a dead part of town.

'Deadtown,' I said, as I got out of the car.

'What did you say?' Martin asked.

'This place,' I replied. 'Deadtown.'

We shut the car doors, and I locked them. Janey looked at me.

'Worried that somebody will steal the car?' she asked.

'No,' I replied. 'I could leave the doors open, lights full on, stereo blazing all night, and it'd still be here in the morning.' I looked around me. I could see the stars overhead, but it felt weird, even without The Sight.

'I think we ought to get going,' I said. 'Let's go.'

'Where are we going?' Janey asked.

'Here,' I replied, pointing to a door in front of me. 'Are you seeing what I'm seeing?'

'Yeah,' Martin replied. 'I'm seeing young men and girls going in, and nothing coming out. I'm seeing the door frame, and it looks like lips and teeth.' I looked at Janey, whose nose was scrunched up in disgust.

'What do you see?'

'It's not what I _see_,' she said. 'It's what I _hear_ and _smell_.' She looked at me. 'Decomp. Lots of decomp. And moaning, and shuffling.'

I looked at the others. 'Shufflers,' I said.

'Do you think they could be connected somehow?' Janey asked.

'It's likely,' I replied. I sensed movement to my right, coming from the dead end of the street. Three people, just silhouettes in normal light and starlight.

With The Sight on, they looked like what they were. Shufflers. Three of them, and more behind them. All of them slowly heading towards us.

'Uh …' Martin said, pointing. More shufflers were coming out of the side alleys between the houses, to fill the street, slowly surrounding us.

'That's far enough,' I gently said. I had no idea why I had to say it.

The shufflers all stopped, at a respectable distance. They stood waiting for something. I looked around at the corpses.

'What do you want?' I asked them.

One of them took a slow, stumbling step forwards. In his rotting hand was an object. An empty bottle, with a rag stuffed into the neck.

I looked at its decaying face, and I understood. 'You have no folks to mourn you,' I said. 'You all just came here, hoping for a new start.' I looked at them all. Some of them looked as if they were dead for years.

I reached into my coat and took out my wallet. 'Martin, I know what it was that that shuffler had wanted,' I replied.

'What?'

'What does that Texaco station sell?' I asked him.

Martin shone his torch on the bottle, and understanding lit up his face. 'You want me to go and get a can of petrol … for that house.'

'Yes,' I told him. 'That place, if I'm right, was once where that binder had lived, and murdered, and turned people into shufflers. They retain enough free will that they must have worked hard to bust their … their friend out, and it had gone for petrol to burn that place down.'

'But Witchy-poo found out, and came after it,' Janey said. 'And if we hadn't stopped her …'

'She'd have been “ever so grateful for having saved her life,”' Martin said, 'and invited us all back to her place. Inside that.' He pointed towards the house, which looked just like all the others, save that the front door resembled a maw with rows of sharp needle teeth, four feet long.

'You don't need petrol to make a place burn,' Janey said, picking up a half brick at her feet and concentrating on it. I had no idea what happened, or how; but somehow, the half brick glowed red in her hands as if it had just been placed in a kiln for a couple of hours.

'What will you do with that?' I asked her.

'Put it through the window,' Janey replied. 'And hope there's something inflammable inside.'

I looked at the lead shuffler, who turned around slowly. The other shufflers began to leave, back down the side alleys.

'Where are they going?' Janey asked.

'You wanted to make sure there was something inflammable inside,' I said. 'They're just going to make sure there is.'

* * *

The fire investigators later billed it a great mystery. How one person could have accumulated so many dead bodies in their place was beyond the police and the horrified Coroner's Office, who would spend the next six months just identifying the dead bodies they'd found.

There was no sign of arson – just one item out of place, what looked like a half brick that had been thrown through the front window into the living room, and had landed against a curtain. That curtain was established as the ignition point for the fire, yet no trace of any kind of ignition source or accelerant was found.

A friend of mine in the Fire Brigade was kind enough to photocopy the arson report, some way down the line. I read it around June 2000, by which time I'd … well, I'll come to that. After a quick phone call to the friend, the report was rewritten to include a hasty note mentioning that there were a lot of unsupervised wax candles left burning in that house, and speculating that one of them could have been knocked over by the half brick, then rolled up against the curtain, igniting it.

I shared the report with Martin, who looked at it and cried softly. The arson investigator and Coroner had had to describe the state of each of the bodies. It looked as if they'd all been placed in a bizarre circle in the centre of the living room, where the fire had begun, like some sort of installation art or ritual.

Some of the corpses' hands had had their fingers twined together, as if they'd been positioned to appear as if they'd been holding hands. Two of them had been positioned embracing one another.

It looked as if a group of people had gathered in the centre of the room, waiting for the blazes to release them. They concluded that the householder had been creating some sort of bizarre and disgusting artform involving desecration of bodies. The householder, who was missing, had a warrant out on her. I knew that she would never be caught.

* * *

But all that was yet to come. It was almost midnight that Monday, by the time we all got back to my place.

Martin and Janey were inside. I was parking the car in the road. I glanced around.

Letitia was standing there.

'Was she one of yours?' I asked, dispensing with the preamble.

'No,' Letitia replied. 'What happened to her?'

'One of her captives attacked her,' I said. 'I went to her place, out of curiosity. She'd gone missing from her place of work, and when I got there the place was already ablaze.' The lies came out thick and fast. 'I didn't go in at all. Just got back in the car and got the hell out of there.'

'I knew of her,' Letitia said. 'She had a bad reputation. Evil.' She looked at me. 'Not one of my sisters. She was not a practitioner of the Craft, if you're wondering.'

'Not all people are alike,' I said. 'Those lines I'd quoted?

“_And ye shall all be freed from slavery,_

_And so ye shall be free in everything ..._”'

Letitia nodded, and leaned forward. 'Just remember the Law of Threefold Returns,' she whispered in my ear. Then she stepped back.

'See you back at work tomorrow, Boss?'

'Bright and early,' I replied. And with that, Letitia walked down the road.

**Author's Note:**

> A cross between Millennium, CSI, The Dead Zone, and Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Hunter: the Reckoning was the White Wolf end-of-millennium game where the ordinary people of the World of Darkness began to fight back.


End file.
